Vi: 
Some Recent Researches on Insect Anatomy. 
N a recent review of Lowne’s work on the Anatomy of the Blow-fly 
in NaTuRAL SCIENCE (vol. i., p. 551), the question of the 
morphology of the mouth parts in the sucking insects was discussed.? 
Two noteworthy contributions to the subject have lately been made. 
Léon (1) describes and figures from a photograph a rudimentary 
three-jointed labial palp on either side of the base of the rostrum of 
an undetermined hemipterous insect. It is clear from this that the 
labial palps do not form any part of the rostrum in the Hemiptera, 
and Léon supports Gerstfeldt’s view that that organ represents the 
parts of the labium (second pair of maxillz) except the palps. 
Of the mouth-parts of the Diptera, Miiggenburg (2) has lately 
written, describing in detail the proboscis in the remarkable parasitic 
group generally known as the Pupipara. These insects are dis- 
tinguished from other Diptera by their metamorphosis, as far as the 
pupal stage, taking place within the body of the mother; and they 
were, on this account, long separated as a distinct sub-order. Brauer, 
however, considered them aberrant and degraded members of the 
group to which the house-fly and blow-fly belong ; his view has been 
shared by most recent writers on the Diptera, and is supported by 
Miggenburg’s researches. The latter observer describes in detail 
the mouth organs of Melophagus (the sheep-tick) and Braula (the bee- 
louse). In the former insect the proboscis is elongated (Fig. 1) as 
it is also in Hippobosca (the horse-fly), Anapeva (the bird-louse), and 
Lipoptena (the deer-fly), which all belong to the same family. In 
Braula (Figs.2, 3) and also in Nycteribia (the bat-louse) the mouth- 
parts are much shortened. In nocase are mandibles present. The 
maxille (which it will be remembered are believed by Lowne to 
form the larger part of the proboscis in the Diptera) are, accord- 
ing to Miggenburg, in the Pupipara represented by two elon- 
gated structures (Fig. 1, mx’), situated within the head capsule, 
which, moved by a complicated system of muscles, assist in pro- 
truding or withdrawing the proboscis to whose base their distal 
extremities are applied. Maxillary palps are present in both 
1 In the last number of the Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist. (6), vol. xi., p. 45, Mr. C. O. 
Waterhouse also criticises ~Professor Lowne’s views on the structure of the 
proboscis in the Diptera. 
